Hamilton, Leclerc and Vasseur prior to the Italian Grand Prix

Fred Vasseur, Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc

Leclerc understands why Ferrari did not use Hamilton to aid his qualy bid

14:54, 07 Sep

byNorberto Mujica

With Lewis Hamilton facing a 5-place grid drop penalty, Ferrari could have opted to 'sacrifice' the Brit to aid Charles Leclerc's efforts in qualifying. The fact that it did not happen, is a matter 'to discuss' for the Monegasque.

Due to his grid penalty, Hamilton will be lining up P10 on the grid having qualified in P5 hot on his teammate's heels in P4.

Leclerc was 0.025s off Oscar Piastri in P3, 0.138s off Lando Norris in P2 and 0.215s off Max Verstappen's pole position time.

Using Hamilton to give the Monegasque a tow down the long Monza main straight might've moved Leclerc along a bit further up the order.

When asked regarding the potential strategy, Leclerc assessed the overall situation and said to GPblog: "It's something we'll discuss with the team now.

"It's always tricky to get it perfectly right and Lewis is still fighting to be starting as far up as possible

"So, we'll discuss about it, but I don't think it's the main point," concluded the Monegasque understanding the bigger picture past his individual qualifying result.

Hamilton against giving Leclerc two at Monza

What does Hamilton feel regarding the qulifying strategic option? “Do I feel like they should have? I don’t,” was his answer to GPblog.

Lewis Hamilton

“It’s not something I ever did in any of my other teams, potentially end up sacrificing one of the drivers.

“And I’ve already got a five-place penalty, so points wise, I needed to be as high as I could.”

Vasseur sees no upside to Monza tow for Ferrari

Ferrari boss, Frederic Vasseur, responded regarding the possibility of using Hamilton to give Leclerc a tow by highlighting the intrateam atmosphere and the potential risks of such an approach.

“With this story of maximum lap time, if you do it, you have to sacrifice one car," the Franchman said to F1TV.

“It’s important for the team and for the drivers to be in a positive mood. It could work, but it also could not work at all.

“Even for Charles, you are much more focused on the tow, the gap to the car in front of you, than you are on the tire preparation. The tyre preparation is so important that we decided to be focused on our own race.”